It’s sort of hard to determine because I think when we’re young, if we don’t sleep, we’re like ‘oh, I feel great.’ You can go on two hours, three hours, four hours of sleep and you don’t feel the effects at all. But as time goes by, that feeling of not sleeping and not being tired is really a real thing. One day a week, a few nights per week, we have to get up early to get something to eat. We just want to do our things. And then the next night, we are so exhausted. And just before you know it, we don’t even look at each other anymore. And we need that. Our friends are always looking after us and making sure we get food and water and are just comfortable. Then the next morning we’re like, ‘oh, wow, that’s such a wonderful experience this morning. And I’m going to go find some more sleep.’ And then the next morning, we just aren’t getting enough sleep. Maybe it’s one or two times a week or once a month per year. So you can see how much of an effect sleep deprivation has in your life. That was me. But there are other people who just cannot seem to get enough of their sleep. They’re like my parents and everyone else who is trying to work but they just can’t seem to get enough of it. Or maybe it’s due to another health condition. Either way, they don’t know. Because they keep asking questions like, ‘How can I help? It can make such a difference. I think one of the reasons why I don’t tell them is because there aren’t many treatments. There are only treatment options. There’s no cure. We do understand what sleep is, and we know how important it is especially for those who struggle with insomnia, but it takes longer than we think. Like many others when going through sleep deprivation, it’s hard for us to realize what we just did. I mean, we’ve been doing it now for almost seven years, but still we never really stop being stressed out. We never know if sleep deprivation is just affecting us in a negative way. In fact, sometimes if we don’t sleep, it becomes worse, or even gets worse. When we forget about a good night’s sleep, we start to take things for granted. This doesn’t do any good.
I thought that if I didn’t sleep enough, I wouldn’t be able to get better. And if I went to bed late at night, I’d be tired, so I wasn’t going to get better. And if I had a long day, I didn’t have to worry too much about not having enough sleep anymore because when I slept well, everything was alright. I assumed it would just magically happen. So I wasn’t sleeping well in fear of not getting better. Instead, I thought I needed to stay awake until 3am so I could get a decent amount of sleep on the days I wasn’t getting one. If I didn’t get enough sleep, you can tell that I didn’t want to do anything else. My body ached to wake up, every cell in my body started hurting, and I felt like I was being tortured.
After the anxiety and sleeplessness subsided, I thought maybe I hadn’t done enough in the past few months. But that was bullshit. Now I’m back doing the same thing. I’m back sleeping because sometimes sleeping is all that’s necessary. Some of us just don’t have the physical stamina to get from point A to point B, so we just stick with the same routine, no matter how miserable we feel.
I decided to figure out what I was doing wrong. I went through several different phases of sleep deprivation, and it made a huge impact on my lifestyle. When I realized I wasn’t sleeping well, it changed everything. It came down to me realizing that I had learned a lot of bad habits and that it was my responsibility to fix them because my daily activities were taking over the most precious little time I had for myself. I took note of every time I was able to get out of bed and go to the bathroom and when I could get back up and walk around. At first, when I was waking up, things weren’t really going well. I’d only just wake up to my alarm and then I’d slowly sit there and wait to see where I could go to wash my face, brush my teeth, and go to the shower. Every morning, I’d go through the motions and get ready just before it starts to rain. But after a while, I stopped actually using the shower, too much water fell on my skin instead, and I’d just end up sweating more and more. Eventually, every time I get out of bed to go to the bathroom, I find some excuse. Sometimes I’ll go downstairs to talk to my mom, talk to her for just a moment, make some tea for herself, and then go back upstairs, go to bed again. I didn’t give myself the opportunity to wake up to myself. I also tried running a mile. Something along these lines never worked. Also, the time I spent cleaning my apartment or trying to organize my stuff became very tiring as soon as a person asked me for help. I got home and spent 30 minutes on my phone messaging someone about how bad things were down there. I started hanging out online. I started listening to podcasts and reading books. For awhile, I didn’t really care. But then everything changed. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I started to feel sick. Everything hurt. I went out and saw other people and they were having fun and enjoying themselves. As time went, I knew I wanted to be happy. But what I had been doing was all wrong. I couldn’t figure it out. All of it was bullshit. I thought I needed to exercise more. I’d try to do as much running I could, but I couldn’t ever get any more out of the workout than I was already. I was getting depressed and having nightmares. I felt like a fraud, like I was an idiot, and I felt awful. After a couple weeks, it became clear to me, I needed to change my routine. Only if I had enough sleep. No, the best thing that I could think of would be just staying home and working. I got up and put my clothes on, ate breakfast, and then went to work.
It only lasted a few weeks. Within two weeks, my insomnia was gone. Not overnight, though. The day before I said goodbye to my boss for lunch, I finally woke up. I rushed downstairs to get a drink of coffee and make dinner for myself. I tried to do things that usually bother me. We talked about what happened at school today. Today wasn’t going as far as I’d hoped, but I managed to stay in my room because I was tired and couldn’t even bring myself to go outside. It wasn’t until later that night that I realized. Until then, my mind wasn’t aware of the problem and what I was feeling. I thought I was doing the right thing. I’d gotten up early enough to eat some nice, healthy meals in order to get enough sleep, but I was too lazy to get out of bed if I wanted to. I’d only just managed to get off to the kitchen to make tea for myself without noticing what I was missing. It seems like I never really thought about that I was missing even though I was feeling pretty drained. But after a few weeks, I realized that I did have to get up early, so that I could get enough sleep. Otherwise, I just had to lie in bed till 11pm to avoid being tempted. I told myself I only had to get up early because I didn’t have any choice.
That evening, I just laid in bed. But it wasn’t long before I found myself wandering back and forth into consciousness. Before I realized it, I knew I was back and trying to remember everything that went wrong. I couldn’t seem to remember if I’d had enough sleep. Nothing seemed to really register what I was missing. I just tried to keep my eyes open and look around and try to figure out what I wasn’t getting. I felt useless. My heart raced as I struggled to hold on to consciousness, but I didn’t remember I was even conscious. Was it a dream? Did I wake up completely out of nowhere? What was happening to me? Why had I lost interest in the world? How come I couldn’t focus on writing and working on my essays? Why couldn’t I get out of bed and go make dinner? I couldn’t see the clock, all the clocks, everything. I just kept hearing words like ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t
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